Breaking

Police Drummer Copeland Makes Covent Garden Thump: Interview

Terry Jones, Anne Dudley and Stewart Copeland. Copeland's opera is paired with another short work, "The Doctor's Tale," by film composer Dudley and librettist (and former Monty Python member) Terry Jones. Source: Royal Opera via Bloomberg

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- As founder and former drummer of the
Police, Stewart Copeland is familiar with adrenaline rushes and
things that go “thump,” just like the hero of his “The Tell-Tale Heart” at the Royal Opera House in London.

The new one-act opera is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic
tale of 1843. A murderer believes he can hear the beating heart
of his victim under the floorboards. It drives him wild, and
eventually he shrieks to the police “I admit the deed! It is
the beating of his hideous heart!”

I caught up with Copeland, 58, during rehearsals at Covent
Garden. Casually dressed in a loose shirt and jeans, the slim
American musician was in a laid-back mood far removed from the
nervy gloom of his subject matter. He answered questions with
wry humor.

How would he describe the musical style of the 30-minute
piece? “I’d start with the adjective ‘brilliant’ and go on up
from there,” Copeland deadpans.

The invitation to compose a chamber work for the Royal
Opera’s Linbury Studio Theatre came out of the blue. “That’s
usually the way it works in the high arts,” he says. “These
guys are hard to hustle.”

Copeland isn’t new to opera. His large-scale piece “Holy
Blood and Crescent Moon,” set during the Crusades, had its
premiere at Cleveland Opera in 1989. And his one-act chamber
piece “The Cask of Amontillado,” also based on a short story
by Poe, was performed in Bermuda in 1994.

Rock Operas

I haven’t heard either of them. Judging from the operatic
efforts of other pop and rock stars such as Rufus Wainwright,
Damon Albarn and Nitin Sawhney, the odds would seem to be
stacked against success.

That doesn’t deter Copeland, and his enthusiasm is
palpable. When he stresses that the piece is short, he also
brings cheer to the weary heart of a critic who has yawned
through many overlong premieres.

Why did he choose to set another Poe tale? “It’s a
wonderful story for opera,” Copeland says. “The main
protagonist soars and gloats, and has tiny little fearful
moments and huge passages of great bravado. And the fact that
there’s a thumping heart makes it great for me. I like
thumping.”

Copeland has written the libretto himself. Was that a
dangerous move? “When you get a libretto, it always has to be
moved around and carved up,” he says. “Rather than beat up
another poor librettist, I figured I’d take it on myself. I was
fortunate in that the underlying source material was already so
strong, too.”

Ed and Al

He has given names to Poe’s (unnamed) murderer and victim.
Cheekily, he has called them “Edgar” and “Alan.”

“It’s a bit of a red herring,” says Copeland, po-faced.
“I don’t want people to read too much into it. I carefully
spelled the name with only one ‘l,’ you’ll notice. Hopefully
that should throw everyone off the scent.”

One of the criticisms leveled against opera is that it’s a
museum art. Does he feel the weight of the composers of the
past? “The great opera composers were so good at their job,
that the whole genre came to be built around the concept of the
composer’s vision,” he says. “So now, the composer gets to
lord it over everybody. It means the likes of me can come into
these opera houses, and find a hierarchy with the composer at
the top of it. It suits me just fine.”

Copeland is also a noted film-score composer (“Rumble
Fish,” “Wall Street”). Are there similarities between writing
for film, rock and opera? “The differences are greater. In a
film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of
the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the
main event.”

Tenor Sting

On his website, the former member of the Police candidly
mentions the ups and downs in his relationship with Sting. How
are things between them now? “We get along great,” Copeland
says. “We realize how much we each brought into the life of the
other.” Is Sting coming to see the opera? “Actually, I even
thought about casting him in the lead role. Unfortunately he’s a
tenor, not a baritone.”

So Sting could have played the victim instead? Copeland’s
laugh pops out of him. “Hey! That would have been great!”

“The Tell-Tale Heart” opens tomorrow at the Royal Opera’s
Linbury Studio in London and runs through April 16. It’s paired
with “The Doctor’s Tale” by film composer Anne Dudley and
librettist Terry Jones (formerly of “Monty Python’s Flying
Circus”). Information: http://www.roh.org.uk or
http://www.stewartcopeland.net/ or +44-20-7304-4000.

(Warwick Thompson is a critic for Muse, the arts and
leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are
his own.)